The first day of fall passed and now it is winter! I’m honestly not sure what happened but one day it was sunny and then next I’m wearing my down coat. On the bright side, it is now perfectly acceptable to eat and drink pumpkin is mass quantities. (It is also now acceptable to wear my favorite smartwool socks and put my spaceheater fire-hazardly close to me wherever I happen to be in my apartment). It’s that time of year when the line at Starbucks is even longer and the customers are even more crazy – all for the pumpkin spice latte fix (I have fallen victim too…). Hence the recipe of the week- pumpkin cookies!
If I hadn’t been making these cookies for the blog, I most likely would have added chocolate chips, but I wanted to do something a little more original and “fall-y” so I used toasted pecan pieces to give the cookies that same crunch. Since these cookies are gluten/grain-free and made with almond meal as the flour, nuts are a central theme and taste here. I also traded in coconut oil for the butter, my new favorite dairy-free substitute. These are sweet enough for dessert but healthy enough for a morning or afternoon snack. Note: they do have quite a different consistency than normal cookies- they’re more like pumpkin pie, both in taste and texture. The pumpkin puree gives them a moistness (I honestly tried so hard to avoid that word but you should thesaurus it and see the other suggestions- eek!) that lets it melt in your mouth. Happy fall and cheers to pumpkins!
Ingredients (Makes ~30 cookies):
- 2 cups almond meal
- 1/2 cup (raw) cane sugar
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp ginger
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/4 cup coconut oil, melted
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup pecans
There are so many substitutions possible here- especially if you don’t have dietary restrictions, but I would suggest trying them with the almond meal and coconut oil anyway- be adventurous! You could trade the pecans for walnuts or any other nut you have on hand- and/or add chocolate chips. The maple syrup goes nicely with the pumpkin flavor but honey would work just fine. For a less-sweet cookie, halve the syrup/honey but keep the dry sugar for consistency purposes. These cookies have a lot of pumpkin spice added, and if you have “pumpkin pie” spice you could just add a couple teaspoons of that instead of individually. Enjoy!
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Place pecans on baking sheet and toast in oven for 5-10 minutes, or until slightly darker and they have that toasty smell. Set aside.
- When cooled slightly, chop pecans into small pieces.
- Mix together dry inredients in a large bowl (excluding pecans).
- Mix together wet ingredients in a small bowl.
- Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix well. Add pecans and stir to combine.
- Lightly grease baking sheet and then place heaping tablespoon-sized dallops of cookie dough on the sheet. Dough will be runny- that’s okay. Try to form thick discs with the dough on the baking sheet- because if they are in balls, they won’t spread very much.
- Bake cookies for 15 minutes, or until lightly browned and top of cookies are set.
- Let cool slightly on baking sheet and then carefully transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Store in containers either at room temperature or in the refrigerator.
Cloud Thyme 